Well, let's see...
I can remember, back during my days at the (now defunct) Westech
Electronics, simultaneously selling the following "big" items:
Argonaut 515
Argosy I & II
Century 21
Corsair I
The 2M HT
The Satellite Transverter
The Hercules linear
We missed out on the Delta and Triton series, and the older Omni's; the
newer (post Corsair) Omni's came out after I left the store (or after the
store went pffft!, I don't recall now). I also don't remember selling the
Century 22 -- or many C21's for that matter, I think the store came into
being at the tail end of that run.
One thing I never understood, from a marketing standpoint, is why the Argosy
was limited to 50 W output. Yes, yes, I know, it's only 3 dB on paper, you
can rarely tell the difference on air, etc. But the bottom line, as a
retailer, is that I could put the Argosy (either I or II) side-by-side with,
say, a Kenwood TS-430s, prove it was a better receiver & a cleaner
transmitter, almost sell the customer on the rig, and he's say more often
than not "but it's only 50 Watts out." At the time, the Argosy was
retailing for about $499 and the 430 for $650-675, and most of the Kenwood
accessories were more expensive too, but that 50 W vs 100 W output was the
breaking point more often than not. (And there were other issues, but that
was the backbreaker)
The Argosy II actually was a tougher sell than the original; the extra, oh
$30 or so for the digital readout closed the price gap, and then it made
someone's decision to to go with a 430S (or the equivalent ICOM or Yaesu
rig) that much easier. And ironically, the store's loan demo Argosy I sat
after the II came out, and I still kick myself for not buying it myself at
cost (*sigh*)
I also wonder if at the time, a 6 meter only CW/SSB Argosy might have sold.
I once mentioned it to someone at TenTec at the time, and (thinking I meant
to ADD 6 meters) told me it was not technically possible for a variety of
reasons. Oh well, at least I tried... and now we have the 6N2.
There's also a question of how long it takes to switch around production
line(s), since I don't think TenTec is building everything at once. Having
modular components is a big help there; as Paul mentioned, if, for example,
the PA block is common to several rigs, you can keep building that section
(and other common ones) while switching around the final assembly lines for
whatever rigs are being built this week.
73, ron wn3vaw
----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Christensen <paulc@mediaone.net>
To: <tentec@contesting.com>; Kevin Anderson <k9iua@juno.com>
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2002 5:19 PM
Subject: Re: [TenTec] 516/Orion/"software defined"/etc.
> However, I am not sure T-T can successfully
> market this many rigs at once. If you look
> back through their history, rarely have they
> had this many models out...
I thought that in the '80s, Ten-Tec had quite a few offerings happening
simultaneously or very close apart. I'm thinking of the
Delta, Corsairs, Omni D-B/C...Argo 505/509/515, Argosy, C21, C22,
Tritons...I'm sure they're capable of doing it again considering
that the time-to-market new products should be much faster than in the '70s
and '80s with CAD design, surface-mount devices, total
control of the metal/chassis processes, etc., AND they can borrow from
existing TT circuitry. Think about it...the PA transmitter
block as used on most TT rigs over the past decade plus needs no changing.
They have an excellent handle on DSP filtering from
their learned experiences with the RX-331, RX-340, RX-320, Pegasus and
Jupiter...so no lengthy time design here. I suspect what
we'll see will be borrowed building blocks from other TT designs. I for one
am hoping that the ORION will take some of the best
attributes of the RX-340 commercial-grade DSP receiver and incorporate some
Ethernet networking capabilities for out-of-the-box
Internet control. I think is was a brilliant idea to have a ham-only
primary receiver and a general coverage secondary receiver. I
can envision secondary having performance commensurate with the
Jupiter/Pegasus. The real proof will lie in the integration of
these blocks with the control circuitry to ensure that QSK will be clean
thump-free and frequency management will be at least what
we have with the Japanese transceivers. I KNOW it can be done. In effect,
it is all done now with the N4PY software controlling
the RX-340/Pegasus. Carl has developed countless useful operating features
that the JA companies haven't figured out yet. For
example, right-clicking on his DUAL VFO button allows one to track two VFOs
at the same time for dual-diversity reception, or
clicking on either the left ot right mouse button on the CW button allows
LSB or USB CW receive, numerous frequency management
options, linear amplifier pulser, etc. If one guy like Carl can get all
this performance timed right, I have to believe TT can as
well.
-Paul, W9AC
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